#wang zhi will remind him that some things are bigger than himself

[shijiujun]

HERE’S ANOTHER - WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH: THE SLEUTH OF MING DYNASTY

OOF alright here’s another drama recommendation! I already briefly talked about the show here so you can see that for a tl:dr version. I would still like to repeat that I have a type, and I love detective shows, whichever period they happen in, and this one happens to be WAY BACK IN TIME so the cases aren’t like crazily good or anything but everything else? YES PLS.

Episodes: 48 (PRODUCED BY JACKIE CHAN!!) 

Where to watch: iQiyi, iQiyi YouTube, Kissasian. Viki, Duboku.net, Kankanwu.com, Bilibili has it too and unfortunately I do not know when the subs come out for Viki :(

History: It was adopted from a BL novel, so Tang Fan and Sui Zhou are technically supposed to be together. But China censorship, we know that ain’t gonna happen, but one can hope that we get something like The Untamed XD So from the trailer it looks like they might pair Tang Fan with this other girl who’s actually quite pretty and I do like the character she’s playing, but looks like the focus WILL BE on the three main guys

Trailer 1 | Trailer 2

Novel (Chinese) - 150+ chapters + 17 epilogues I think?

Summary: Tang Fan is a sixth rank official working at Shun Tian Fu (like an equivalent of a neighbourhood police office) who’s a deductions specialist, smart genius detective of sorts. He happens to be at the scene of two cases, and is arrested by Sui Zhou, Captain of the guards (like a regional SWAT team of sorts). Wang Zhi is a eunuch working under the Gui Fei (royal concubine) in the palace, and also the head of the Western Depot Xi Chang, which is the equivalent of I guess, a city police headquarters? All three men work for the Emperor, with Wang Zhi having the most power among them three because he has direct access to the Emperor and is a trusted advisor kinda.

*Found out that the ship name from the novel is 饭粥 Fan Zhou, but written (rice + porridge XD)

Anyway the three of them work together for the first two cases and form unlikely friendships and find themselves wrapped up in a larger conspiracy. Do the three of them together make me feel like there should be a polyamory thing going on? And do I kind of ship Tang Fan and Wang Zhi? Oh jesus. Yeah. Then again I’m only 10 eps in and from the trailer there’s a lot of Tang Fan WHUMP!!! And both Wang Zhi and Sui Zhou try to support him in different ways and I’m all for that although the conspiracy seems pretty huge and the angst looks like it might hit the roof.

1. OUR HIMBO IS CALLED TANG FAN (Tang Run Qing): His hobby aside from detective work is writing romance novels under another pen name (I suppose, almost an AO3 fic writer’s equivalent at that time) and eating. He just, eats. Honestly, he checks all the boxes - Needy, whiny, intelligent and smart, pouty, always hungry, tries to laze about all the time, is timid AF, gets bullied all the damn time and cannot fight for shit, is a cheapo and always has food debt, but has a temper etc. No sense of boundaries (uses Sui Zhou’s bath without asking and then invites him in for a bath, together). And like Lu Yao in MRIAD, he threw up at the sight of a body, so yep. But at the first sign of trouble does Tang Fan go save Sui Zhou, all on his own? FUCK YES. Still a himbo tho.

2. SUI ZHOU (Sui Guang Chuan), OUR SECOND HANDSOME, CAPABLE, FIGHTING MALE LEAD WHO TAKES CARE OF TANG FAN (BUT BULLIES HIM IN THE BEGINNING): This man, he be handsome and his fight moves are all BEAUTIFUL. He’s so calm at all times it’s amazing and when HE BE IN UNIFORM?? OOMPH. He rescues Tang Fan a few times, and then later Tang Fan moves into his house because he got kicked out, and this man BECOMES THE HOUSE COOK. HE HAS TO NEGOTIATE WITH TANG FAN TO NOT TOUCH SHIT IN HIS HOUSE, OR RENOVATE WITHOUT HIS KNOWLEDGE. But he still cooks for Tang Fan, gets him to do work by threatening not to feed him. 

3. AND OMG WANG ZHI - LIKE, HE BE A SCHEMING BUT VERY COMPETENT & CHARMING LITTLE BIJ. He’s like 17 in this show. Can you tell he’s 17? I can’t. I like that he’s so powerful and he’s the concubine’s right-hand man, plus he seems heartless in the first few eps but when you get to know him you do see that he’s very loyal, and quite fair even if he’s very opportunistic. He also has A LOT of money and power. He has a SHITTY TEMPER when provoked but he quite likes Tang Fan, that’s the thing - basically the very competent sidekick teasing & bullying Tang Fan while Sui Zhou is TF’s SO but i can’t help but ship FanZhouZhi if you get what i mean

4. Royal Concubine is like apparently, 49 years old - She’s pretty, and she seems to be mean as well, but evil? Not so sure. Gotta see how it goes. But the first few cases are aimed at her, as unseen forces are trying to take her down considering how much power she has. She’s done her fair share of evil things (like the usual, getting rid of other concubines who can dethrone her etc.). Look at her yawn at a serious meeting. She couldn’t give two fucks about propriety. I like that.

9. No huge bromance moments yet! Just little things here and there, but I like that there hasn’t been any like hint of a token hetero relationship for any of the three main leads just yet, but I may probably have to eat my words. IN ANY CASE. SOME MOMENTS THAT I DO LIKE:

+ classic wall 壁咚 moment between sui zhou and tang fan

+ wang zhi telling tang fan that whenever he needs him, he’ll turn up right at his side